Unsharp photography
by eNoBlog on Sep.25, 2009, under Post-processing, Techniques
I have a confession to make: I have been sucked into the tack-sharp school of photography. I’ve bought into the prevailing theory that photos needing “pop,” and that this extra umph comes from sharpness (okay, and saturated colors and loads of contrast, but we’ll leave those for another day).
Then I came face to face with my compulsion to Unsharp-mask (USM) all my photos until they turn into scalpels fit for brain surgery. It happened when I started reviewing the photography of the masters, noticing all those soft edges and little of the freckle-counting or hair-enumerating sharpness I try to achieve in my photos. Those images worked. They still work, and powerfully, sans the USM or the use of super-sharp lenses, apparently. If you want to see for yourself, check out this gallery or this one, or Google some on your own. Yes, some images are sharp, but not all, and they are still worthy of admiration.
Why all the fascination with sharpness, then? I don’t know the answer, really. Maybe it’s all the HDTV or computer monitor viewing we do. Maybe now we examine photos on screen, from 6 inches away as opposed to in a magazine or in a gallery, where the reproduction mediums and viewing distances render “pixel-sharpness” even more nonsensical than it already is. Or maybe we’re trying to make our mediocre images pop with digital trickery. I don’t know.
I do know this. I need to get out of the super-USM mindset and put more thought into what truly makes a great image.
September 25th, 2009 on 1:45 pm
hi eno, great thoughts and i’m sure your not the only one thinking this way. i believe you’ve pretty much hit on it by discussing how we view the photos? or do we now just call them images?
September 25th, 2009 on 2:29 pm
Photos, images, tomatoe, tomahtoh… Let’s call the whole thing off.
September 25th, 2009 on 2:53 pm
You’ve missed the point.
Not everything needs to be sharp. Not ever part of an image needs to be sharpened. And those are true for “blur” too!
The art involved is knowing where to sharpen and where to blur. Sort of like composition… knowing what should be cropped out and what needs to be part of the image.
September 25th, 2009 on 9:33 pm
Never thought of quite that way, but you’re right. By selectively sharpening and/or blurring parts of the photo, one can emphasize and de-emphasize certain things.
September 25th, 2009 on 8:35 pm
Soft pictures are not a challenge. Detail, as I see it through the lens, is.
September 25th, 2009 on 9:34 pm
Moreover, detail that matters, i.e., detail that helps convey the story and/or portray the subject. Detail for the sake of detail is just as pointless as sharpening to give the appearance of detail.
September 25th, 2009 on 9:42 pm
Comment by Alex Glickman posted from Flickr discussion
“I have an opinion on why certain technical things in photography (like sharpness, resolution, contrast etc.) are seemingly so central to many people in photography nowadays. My theory is: those things are the proverbial ‘low hanging fruit’. Once we stop concentrating on those technical factors, we are left ‘naked’ and ‘unprotected’ in front of the far more profound and difficult to achieve things, that could be collectively called: “the substance”. Substance is tough… It’s time consuming, it’s very difficult to define and even more difficult to capture. And it’s so frustrating!
“I’ve been shooting almost everyday for the last 3 weeks and not a single photo that I am satisfied with… Sometimes I feel like I’ve ‘lost it’ and should just sell this whole thing… The better one gets, the tougher it becomes to get a photo… USM is easy. Curves and levels and layers are easy. Substance is tough… but it’s worth it, I think.”
September 26th, 2009 on 7:53 am
I think we often photograph to record a scene as we see it, or think we see it in all its color and detail. I know my focused photos are sharper than what I can see but I am more critical of the details when looking at the image on my monitor or in print and therefore want all the sharpness and detail I can get. But I think that this detail is often not important but is just what I expect. I also think you are on the right track when you consider the importance of “tack sharpness” and how it relates to the image, some images benifit from this treatment, others do not. Its good to look at what characteristics actually improve an image, and those that are merely performed to meet our standards for quality.
September 27th, 2009 on 5:53 pm
So what should I do with my soft focus filters?? And I guess I should toss the Lensbaby too
In one of my favorite images from my old film archives, I missed the mark slightly with focus. It still remains one of my favorite images.